Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan has formulated an advisory inter-ministerial body to who will be putting forward measures to resolve the issues facing different sectors and facilitate exports from the country.
Business Recorder reported on Friday that the inter-ministerial committee will be headed by the Advisor on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood.
It will be mandatory for the committee to meet every two weeks and the recommendations will be made to the prime minister, who in turn will hold monthly meetings with the business community representatives for consultations before moving forward with the policy formulation and implementation.
Something of similar nature was talked about in the recent joint presser by Razak Dawood and Shahbaz Gill. Dawood said, that following the recent meeting with the PM, the exporters thanked Prime Minister Imran Khan for lending the business community an ear unlike ever before.
He added,” it has been decided in the latest meeting that PM Khan will hold a monthly meeting with the exporters to listen to their problems”, which would be solved on the provincial level by provincial representatives and on the federal level by the federal government.
On the other hand, exporters will meet the relevant government representatives and stakeholders every 15 days to hold consultations on the issues, and this will facilitate sustainable growth targets set by the government.
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Exports in FY21
Pakistan’s exports were $25.629 billion in FY21 versus $22.536 billion in FY20, showing an increase of 18.28 percent.
Some record positive statistics were seen during the FY21 as the country saw the highest ever merchandise exports and high remittances, both adding to high capital inflow in the country.
The year recorded the strongest-ever remittances inflows of $29.3 billion and exports worth $25.6 billion in Pakistan’s history while imports stood at a 3-year high of $53.8 billion.
Textile exports reached their highest level in history at $15.4 billion in 12MFY21 with the value-added segment registering an uptick of 28.5 per cent YoY from $12.5 billion in 12MFY20 as the country benefitted from trade war between China and US/EU, and business disruptions in competitive economies. Knitwear saw the biggest jump with 36.6 per cent YoY, while the raw cotton exports saw a 95.27 per cent decline.
Similarly, the services sector saw an increase in exports YoY, reaching $5.9 billion, up from $5.4 billion FY20, decreasing the deficit in the sector from $3.3 billion in FY20 to $1.9 in FY21 supported by a decrease in imports.
One of the emerging export locations for the country during the last fiscal year was Italy. Pakistan’s exports to Italy recorded a 49 per cent growth on a year-on-year basis to $786 million in the outgoing fiscal year 2020-21 despite the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic had hit the Italian market.
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